So, I am tinkering with a follow-up to the story I have written while I take a break before editing. I cannot recall who who said it (Oscar Wilde, maybe?), but someone said "kill your darlings." I've written this brief passage that follows on from the blog entry here: 

Essentially, Krystan has programmed 329 to get ahead and provide a distraction for Freja so she can do what she needs to. There's no sympathy here. It is a machine. And it won't stop. Its only programming is to advance and wipe out whatever is in front of it. And it's buying time for her. "You hear that? You know what it is. It's dying for you." This is Freja returning to the scene of the battle. This is also a bit of an experiment in that I've never written like this before.

I know this breaks from WH40K lore, but it felt right and I am happy with it. This isn't written in stone, yet, but it is an idea I am toying with.

Anyhow, thoughts most welcome. Did my Beast in the Basement die a good death? Bonus points for getting the Alien 3 ref, haha

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She waited until the patrols moved on.

The battlefield wasn’t cordoned, just forgotten. It was left to smoulder, and rot, and settle into silence. Wrecked Chimeras still dotted the ridgeline. Spent casings pooled in shallow craters. The stench of fuel clung low in the air.
 

She moved carefully, her boots crunching over vitrified dirt, past what had once been a sentry post. The husk of 329 lay ahead, split open along its spine, blackened and half-submerged in rubble. One of the Vulcans had melted down the side of the hull. The other pointed skyward, cracked at the base.

 

She climbed the flank, fingers brushing scorched plating, and dropped into the wreck. It was cooler than expected. Dust lay thickly over the control systems. Most of it was ruined, slagged by the brutal impacts that finally took it out. The forward compartment had collapsed completely, but the rear diagnostics bay remained intact, though barely.

She found the recorder wedged beneath a fused junction box. The casing had warped, its paint seared off and serials unreadable. She pried it loose with both hands, teeth gritted, and held it up to the weak light filtering through the wreck. One orange diode blinked, slowly and steadily. Still alive.

 

She fired up the recorder. It showed a static camera view from the turret: low angle, scorched lens edges, a skewed horizon. Ahead advanced the defensive line of the 135th PDF, twelve soldiers braced behind reinforced barriers, barely visible through the haze.

 

The turret began to rotate. Overlay data appeared across the screen.

 

- Rotate –34.5° to port

 

- Elevation –4.0°

 

The Vulcan cannons howled.

 

- FIRE: 1.7s – 29 rounds expended

 

The image blurred with recoil and muzzle flash bloomed white across the lens. A cloud of dust, and flame, and shredded bodies. Freja flinched. She hadn’t seen it from this angle before. She hadn’t understood what was happening above her, in the tunnels. She thought she had heard it, the howl, but this was different.

 

This wasn’t a war. This was an extermination.

 

More data scrolled across the feed:

 

- Inbound airborne munitions detected

 

- Inbound airborne munitions detected

 

- WARNING: ECM failure

 

- Impact to primary weapon

 

- Primary weapon operating at 50% operational capacity

 

The footage stuttered. One barrel exploded out of frame. Molten debris flashed across the periphery.

- WARNING: Primary generator temperature +89.4°C over tolerance

- Power reroute: PROTOCOL KRYSTAN/R/1 – Primary weapon overclock engaged

The remaining Vulcan whined higher, a metallic shriek rising to a scream.

 

- FIRE: 0.8s – 17 rounds expended

 

- WARNING: Primary weapon operating at +205% of thermal capacity

 

The cam shook.

 

- Impact to primary generator

 

- Impact to primary turret

 

- Impact to primary turret

 

- Sensor anomaly: unexpected error - secondary sensor suite

 

- WARNING: Fire in cryogenic compartment

 

- WARNING: Primary weapon operating at +137% operational capacity

 

- FIRE: 1.2s – 21 rounds expended

 

- Rotate +22.5° to starboard

 

- Elevation +1.6°

 

- FIRE: 2.2s – 43 rounds expended

 

Freja’s mouth parted slightly.

 

The image blurred for a moment. The final burst sprayed wide, uncontrolled. The last defiant scream of a dying machine.

 

- WARNING: Primary generator: terminal damage

 

- WARNING: Secondary generator: terminal damage

 

- WARNING: Primary sensors offline

 

- WARNING: Primary weapon offline

 

- WARNING: Hull integrity failure imminent

 

- WARNI-

 

=====

 

DATA LOG ENDS

 

She sat still, her hands clenched in her lap.

 

She hadn’t wept in months. Not for what she’d seen. Not for what she’d done. But for this? For a machine?

 

She didn’t know.

 

But she sat with it. With the silence that came after its scream.